Athletes worry about having enough energy during their exercise.
When many people in developed countries are obese or overweight, every technique helps, especially something for those who don't like to sweat...
Ironically, I'm a sedentary person who doesn't have enough energy to do 10 stations at the gym. If I do back & legs I'm pretty much done for the day.
While I was reading the article, I realized that my need for optimizing for efficient blood sugar use is different than the many who would rather waste it.
You start minimally and slow, far below exertion capacity, rest a few days, and do similar stuff with slightly more intensity (resistance) or volume (number of reps). There's an art/science to it, and barring health handicaps it's essentially a universal system the body evolved to do.
(If your goal for exercises is physical therapy or bodybuilding, ignore the rest of this)
If a given "station" is what I picture it to be, it is likely a station for training a muscle in isolation. example: a station called "preacher's bench" for "bicep curls",l.
Consider that isolation exercise is, broadly, really useful for two circumstances: bodybuilding, and physical therapy.
For functional fitness, it is exceedingly rare that the an individual muscle would be the only muscle group engaged.
So, instead, I would strongly argue that free weights (dumbells, barbells) and the compound (multi-muscle) movements are a better use of time and energy at the gym. https://aasgaardco.com/store/books-posters-dvd/books/startin... and https://aasgaardco.com/store/books-posters-dvd/books/practic... are a good starting point.
Also Strength Training Anatomy - 3rd Edition by Frederic Delavier - helpful as a reference which stations engage what muscles.
It's why there is so much benefit to riding a cycle for 20-30 minutes before working out. Soleus Pushups done properly won't cause fatigue like the cycle does, yet triggers a long-lasting metabolic state (hours, versus minutes you can expect from short bursts of exercise) in the same amount of time.
Athletes already have strong metabolic responses, except when they plateau, but that's surely not going to happen to a couch potato or desk jockey.
It’s a bit complicated to get the equipment and training to learn how to do this; maybe that effort is better allocated to just encouraging people to get up and go for a walk every once in a while.
This method has been used for decades and the results on the obesity rates do not seem to be very good so far. Maybe it's time to try other approaches.
I'm much more optimistic about pharmaceutical approaches to combating the obesity epidemic at this point. The current cultural direction on this may shift at some point however.
Fair point, and I do agree that pharmaceutical approaches seem more likely to reach more people affected by this problem. My broader point was that the simplistic "just be more active" seem ineffective... and in my experience in some cases even counterproductive, so providing more alternative routes to healthier lifestyles makes sense to me, as complicated as they may seem, maybe they will be more convincing/enticing than what we currently do.